Today we meet a Jewish man named Apollos, “an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures,” who comes to Ephesus. “When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.” Apollos goes on to refute “the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.”
Paul arrives in Ephesus and baptizes the believers in the name of Jesus. “And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them…” “And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months…But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.”
From Ephesus, Paul writes a letter to the church in Corinth. He tells them not to fight over who baptized them but to be one in Christ; “no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
Paul says that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Paul reminds them that he came to them in weakness. “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
For “no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”
Since Paul and Apollos are just ministers of the Lord through whom the new converts believed, Paul tells them that they do not need to quarrel over which one baptized them. Paul explains how sharing the Gospel works – ”I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.”
Tomorrow more from Paul to the Corinthians. Keep reading.
(Acts 18:24-19:20,1 Corinthians 1:1-3:18)
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Chronological Bible in Layman's Terms 